“Woman with Umbrella in Rain” by Raimund von Stillfried. Artist: Kusakabe Kimbei (Japanese, 1841–1934), 1870s. Commercial photography studios in Meiji-era Japan were renowned for the subtlety and refinement of their coloring techniques. This hand-tinted image of a young woman caught in a heavy rainstorm achieved its naturalistic effect by knitting together multiple strands of artifice: the greenery in the foreground was a studio prop; the flaps of the kimono were suspended by thin wires to create the impression of a strong wind; and long, diagonal marks were made on the negative to suggest streaks of rain. (Photo courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art)

High-rise buildings are partly covered by heavy fog at Hong Kong's Victoria Harbour Monday, March 20, 2017. Fog blanketing Hong Kong is common in springtime and may greatly affect shipping and aviation. (Photo by Vincent Yu/AP Photo)

Mangrove in Walakiri Beach after Sunset in East Sumba, Indonesia in 2018. (Photo by Sarubabel Malau/Rex Features/Shutterstock)

The sunrise over the beach huts at Hamworthy Park in Poole, Dorset, United Kingdom on April 28, 2022. (Photo by Rachel Baker/Bournemouth News)

A worker holds the head of a fox while killing it with electricity for its fur at a fox farm in Nanzhuang village, Shandong province, China, December 11, 2015. There are over 60 households in the village still raising foxes, raccoon dogs and other animals for the fur trade. China is the world's largest fur producer and exporter, according to state media. (Photo by William Hong/Reuters)

A Sri Lankan elephant, accompanied by his mahout, browse through a roadside fruit stall in Colombo on January 19, 2015. The Sri Lankan elephant is listed as endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) as the population has declined by at least 50 percent over the last three generations, with the species threatened by habitat loss, degradation and fragmentation. (Photo by Lakruwan Wanniarachchi/AFP Photo)

Young revelers take part in a parade called "La Calabiuza" on November 1, 2015, on the eve of the Day of the Dead in Tonacatepeque, 20 kms (13 miles) north of San Salvador. During the celebration, the residents of Tonacatepeque, originally an indigenous community, recall the characters from the mythology of Cuscatlan – pre-Columbian west and central regions of El Salvador – and their dead relatives. (Photo by Marvin Recinos/AFP Photo)

Photo: Vladimir Ilyich Lenin (1870 – 1924) lying in state in the Kremlin. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images). 1924

Important! For the same article in Russian language click here.

Something quite intriguing is happening within Russian-speaking internet during the last few – should you type a fully academic inquiry (at least, according to Russian academic requirements) in national search engines for "Lenin's mausoleum" – the first thing you get (even in top 10 searches) is website pages talking about black magic and occult. Website authors view this construction differently, but unconditionally agree on one thing: the mausoleum of the "leader of the world proletariat” – the essence of a magical artifact, a sort of “energy vampire”. It was built with a certain purpose: to drain the energy out of miserable Soviet citizens on one hand; and to poison the anthroposphere of one-sixth part of the earth with its vibes (the exact territory that was occupied by the former Soviet Union), depriving the Russian people of will to resist on the other hand. Complete nonsense? No doubt. Nevertheless, an intriguing one. Well, probably because some oddities do exist in mausoleum's history. These oddities are the thing we are going to discuss this time. First, let me refresh you memory on the subject.